Horsley: Best weather around the corner

Today I’ve come to my secret spot to watch the moon set and think about the changing seasons. The calendar says autumn doesn’t begin for another three weeks, but in my mind today marks the beginning of fall. As I type these words, a marvelous full moon hovers above the western horizon. My car thermometer reads 64. The sun is about to rise behind me, but I don’t care anymore — its power is gone.

Gone, too, is the massive high pressure dome that parked over Texas for what seemed an eternity, crushing everything below with suffocating heat. That won’t happen again for a long time. Now I consider the sun a deposed king, strutting its crown by day but failing to gain the fear or adoration of the masses.

I enjoy the changing of the seasons, especially this one. It’s a time to think back fondly on what I accomplished this summer (not a whole lot) and forward to what most consider the best season in the Texas Panhandle. If you can’t appreciate the crisp nights and clear days of September and October here, maybe you should think about going back downstate and cranking up your air conditioner.

Meanwhile, we’ll be sleeping under quilts with the windows open, breathing sweet prairie air. My downstate friends don’t believe it when I say the temperature dipped into the upper 50s several nights ago, so I don’t press the point. It’s better if they don’t know.

Now my mind is turned to fall activities, such as hiking the canyon and teaching. It’s been way too long since I’ve been able to get to Palo Duro Canyon, and my dog and I are itching to hike. I need to check the arrowhead I mentioned here one time, to see if it’s still where I laid it. There was a pair of great horned owls roosting in a cedar tree — I must check on them, too. And a small herd of aoudad sheep must be accounted for, just to see if the coyotes have whittled them down.

I said I didn’t accomplish much this summer, but that’s not true. I did manage to finish the one thing I most wanted to accomplish: get my Mom situated in an Alzheimer’s facility where she would be happy and safe. By luck or by providence, that little chore is done.

School is back in session, meaning those of us who had the summer “off” are back at work. Teachers everywhere are starting to learn the names of their students; a new tide of freshmen rolled onto campus last week and wandered the sidewalks and hallways looking for where they belong. What they didn’t realize is they were already where they belong, even if they couldn’t find their classrooms.

Fall also means political conventions, and we’ve put one behind us with one to go. The sooner this whole election business is over, the better. The country’s acrimonious mood is trying (unsuccessfully) to ruin my enjoyment of autumn. Everywhere I turn, someone is trying to force a belief on me. Even harmless little Facebook has now become a political forum. Sometimes politics feels like a spreading plague, for which the only cure is November.

In the alley behind my house stands the loveliest moonflower bush I’ve ever seen. These fall harbingers usually grow low and wide, but this one is tall and festooned with more buds than I’ve ever seen. In autumn, they open at night, hence the name, inviting pollination by other night-dwellers like sphinx moths that flutter from one ghostly white flower to the next. Every part of the moonflower plant is said to be poisonous, but I don’t plan to eat this one — just enjoy its show and know that when winter’s first bitter wind comes howling down the plains and the moonflower bush twists in death, dropping its seeds to the ground, next fall’s show is already in the planning stage.

I hope to be on the front row again.

David Horsley is an Amarillo author and freelance writer. He teaches English at West Texas A&M University.